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By Obidigbo Urueze-Ide
Thursday, May 20, 2021, saw two national strikes resolved in one day. One grounded two of the three arms of government for nearly two months, while the other lit a fire that almost engulfed the entire country from Kaduna State. Their timely resolution has saved the nation some tragic consequences, once more. It is not conflicted in any way that the line that seamed the world of work to the polity is very malleable. One foretastes the other and, mutually, they share salutary and antagonistic factors and effects. A regressive world of work is an active volcano on the fortunes of nations.
Luckily, Nigeria has a relatively stable industrial milieu substantially obtained on the strength of the sustained effort of one man, the Minister of Labour and Employment, Sen. Chris Ngige. Otherwise, the situation at hand is unsupportive. The incidence of unemployment put at 33 per cent by the National Bureau of Statistics, the heavily-inflated prices of goods and services that ate out the minimum wage and the unresolved age-long labour issues that ginger restiveness will ordinarily mock preceding submission of a stable national labour locale. ‘Ministry of Labour’ is a distinction at a time when many Nigerians would trace a larger chunk of our woes to incompetent leadership! Here is a shining post amid multiple dim lights. Unfortunately, this effort is diminished in optics by the usually more visible foibles in the collective leadership. Ngige faces huge headwinds in labour, yet he delivers.
The hell that was Kaduna between May 17 and 20, 2021, is well-documented in the media. It was unprecedented. It would be the first time in history that labour would march on one state with the weight it marched on Kaduna. It was a total lockdown of all services amid the threat of violence by thugs apparently hired by the state government. It was anarchic, law and order almost broke down, as the NLC affiliate unions the country over threatened to join in sympathy. NUPENG warned members were gearing up to down tools just as the Minister of Works and Power raised the alarm over plans by the affiliate unions in the sector to impose ‘darkness’ on a nation already benighted by a nightfall of hunger, disease and insecurity. Had the strike been prolonged, government would have offered on a platter what detractors could not achieve during the last EndSARS protests in a renewed national conflagration.
Therefore, the intervention of the Federal Government through the Minister of Labour and Employment was a stitch in time. With the torrents of mess the man keeps clearing in the industrial sector, it is little arguable that he is the bulwark without whom the country would descended to a Hobbesian jungle. His letter to the warring parties in Kaduna was concise. “I am therefore constrained in the exercise of my powers as the Minister of Labour and Employment, under the Trade Disputes Act, CAP. T8, Laws of Federation of Nigeria (LFN) 2004, to invite you and your top officials to the emergency trade dispute conciliation meeting.”
The letter equally asked the two parties to maintain the status quo ante bellum pending the resolution of the dispute, which included the retrenchment of workers, compulsory retirement of workers on Grade Level 14 and above and those who have attained the age of 50 years, irrespective of their grade levels, reduction of the staff strength in each local government to 50 and casualization of workers on Grade Level 1-6.
The Kaduna State Government was led to negotiation by Commissioner for Local Government Ja’afaru Sani and the head of service, Bariatu Mohammmed, while the NLC president, Ayuba Wabba, led labour. The atmosphere the warring parties created in Kaduna was an assurance that sleeves would be rolled up at the meeting and it was so with Bariatu Mohammmed insisting the NLC apologize for calling the Kaduna governor a tyrant. NLC yielded no inch. With a barrage of allegations and counter-allegations, the minister appeared to have deliberately allowed a rowdy window for ventilation of the bottled up anger, before deflating the tension in his usual deftness for issues to be resolved with decorum. Six hours down the line, issues got to a head as Ngige reached out for section 20 of the Labour Act, Cap. L1, LFN, and declared that all the things in contention border on redundancy as fully captured by the law. He further explained the provisions were not followed by the Kaduna State government. The meeting decided to constitute a 10-man bi-partite committee, comprising six representatives of the state government and three officials of the NLC to engage further with the objective of reverting with a work plan on how to integrate the provision of section 20 of the Labour Act and report back Tuesday, May 25, 2021. By the time the MOU was signed, the once stony faces beamed with laughter, fist-pounding and banters. The peacemaker had made peace once again.
Then came the turn of the Judiciary Staff Union of Nigeria (JUSUN) and Parliamentary Staff Association of Nigeria (PASAN) who patiently waited for hours along the corridors of the ministry. In fact, officials of the ministry had to hurry up the Kaduna team who were delaying over the semantics of a particular word deployed in the MOU. They were yet to leave their seats when members of PASAN and JUSUN began to take some of the vacant seats. The journey to the climax of the day was for the two unions tortious and windy, involving arms and tiers of government as well as professional associations whose opinions must determine the resolution of the autonomy challenge.
Ngige together with Sen. Ita Enang who is the Secretary of the Presidential Implementation Committee on the Autonomy of the State Judiciary and Legislature had to liaise with Attorney General of the Federation, the Solicitor General of the Federation, Chief of Staff to the President, the Governors’ Forum, Conference of Speakers of State Houses of Assembly, Conference of judges and the Nigerian Bar Association as well as the two unions. With the unions insisting the provisions of the 1999 constitution was non-negotiable, rebuffing rapprochement overtures, the stake got higher.
No wonder offers were turned down and strike lasting as long. But the issues were more complex than the usual straight negotiation as legalism and equity battled for balance on a scale denominated by figures of financial autonomy.
But Ngige’s patience, a consistent animating principle in all negotiations, is as long and uncommon as the authority he exudes at negotiations. Nonetheless he could also tug the heartstrings. At times , he turns a teacher to take the mostly young union members through misconceptions. His endurance takes the unions through gritty facts and procedures without which negotiation will be improbable. An insider at one of the negotiations revealed how he disabused thinking among unions that state judiciary and legislature can draw straight from Federation Account . He was quoted to have once told the unions, “ I am a medical person. I deal with clinical precision, and can’t be debating what is impracticable.” It was meeting upon meeting for a stretch of a month. On the day the unions walked out, claiming the Minister and the government team kept them waiting, the Ministry countered the meeting was postponed to enable the Federal Government negotiating team harmonize all issues from the memorandum of understanding reached at different meetings so as to give negotiation a clear focus.
Sen. Enang provided insight into how Ngige’s seminal contributions broke the ice. “In this matter, you became a judge, a lawyer and an accountant . You also brought in your experience as a former governor and Senator. Fortunately for us , we came to learn at the feet of a person who practiced this autonomy about twenty years ago without Executive Order 10. So we thank you very much and thank God for making you a Minister at this time and on this matter.” The success would have been impossible without Ngige’s eminent role.
As the curtain fell on the meeting that day and Ngige declared, “ the meeting is over , go in peace,” signaling the end, and consequently the resolution of the long standing dispute, the hall erupted in joy, as unionists and all went wild with solidarity songs. Speaking with journalists shortly after, Emmanuel Abioye, Deputy President JUSUN who led the union to talks said “when a public officer knows his duty , dutifully and conscientiously does it, the society becomes a better place.” Ngige has saved the nation once more but for how long will he hold out as things craw from bad to worse.
•Obidigbo, journalist and poet, lives in Abuja
